Electronic components are often made by attaching integrated circuits and equivalent small components to a circuit board for use in electronic games, computers, and a multitude of other uses. The electrical conductors between the integrated circuits on the board and the various other components may be printed onto the circuit board, with the various components being each applied to the board at a precisely determined location, to enter into electrical connection with the various printed conductor lines.
The manufacture of all electronic components, including circuit boards carrying integrated circuits and the like, is intensely price competitive, so there is a continuing need to improve the efficiencies of manufacturing operations.
Currently, many of the operations of manufacturers of electronic circuit boards are manually done, so improvements in automation are needed.
As one currently available automated technique, machines are available for the automated installation of integrated circuits onto circuit boards with the machine operating to precisely position a number of integrated circuits and similar devices in precisely predetermined positions on the board. The machines are capable of applying in an automated manner a large number of different types of integrated circuits to the same board, each positioned in a precisely predetermined position.
For example, the Multi-Module automatic DIP insertion machine is sold by Universal Instruments Corporation of Binghamton, New York. This machine is capable of applying any or all of 72 different types of integrated circuits or the like to a circuit board, each being precisely attached to the board in a predetermined manner at a high speed. Basically, the circuit board is placed on horizontally movable table, and the various types of integrated circuits are placed in tubular magazines that extend vertically over feeding apertures in the machine. An installer assembly reciprocates back and forth along the line of magazines, selecting the integrated circuits for installation from each magazine in accordance with a computer program and delivering them in conjunction with the movable table, to precise positions on the circuit board.
While this commercially available machine provides great efficiencies of operation in the manufacture of electronic circuit boards, it has been found that, in operation, from 40 to 50 percent of the time during a regular operating shift the machine is not operating because one or another magazine has been exhausted of its supply of integrated circuits. This is so even if a skilled operator is constantly monitoring the supply of integrated circuits in the magazine, because the machine operates so rapidly that the operator falls behind in the continuing and demanding operation of (1) noting an exhausted magazine among the substantial array of magazines that may be replaced, (2) removing the exhausted magazine, (3) selecting another magazine containing that particular type of integrated circuit from among the large number of loaded magazines that must be available for the machine, and (4) reinstalling the filled magazine into its proper place on the machine, while also loading fresh and unloading processed circuit boards into and from the machine.
In accordance with this invention, a further efficiency of operation is provided to simplify the labor of the operator of the machine by the use of pre-loaded casings holding a plurality of tubular magazines, which can be automatically placed into operating relation with the automated apparatus, one after another, as individual magazines are exhausted. Thus the operator is spared the time-consuming burden of having to make an individual selection of magazines and an individual installation thereof when a particular magazine is exhausted. He has to only remove the exhausted magazine to permit another one to snap into position.
As a further efficiency, the individual casings may be loaded with magazines by less skilled help at a different location and time. They do not have to exercise the responsibility of selecting the proper type of magazine for loading, since typically each of the casings holds magazines which all contain only a single type of integrated circuit.
Thus a substantial increase in efficiency of automated apparatus for applying integrated circuits and similar devices to a circuit board can be obtained through the use of this invention.